Stories 4
All kinds
Origin
Legend
Local story
Folk tale
From the epics
Festival story
Temple legend
In stone and bronze
How a tradition frames it
Everywhere
Pan-India 94
South India 66
West India 30
East India 22
North India 15
The Himalaya 12
Northeast India 5
Southeast Asia 4
Central India 4
devotionbooncreationdisguisesupremacycursemarriagepenancepridetestdancepilgrimagesacrificebirthemanationfirebeheadingdemon slayingdesireiconographyausteritychurningcombined formcosmogonyhomecominglingapoisonrebirthriveratonement
Tradition: Tribal · clear
Legend · 3 tellings · contested
Mahishasura's boon: no man shall kill him
The buffalo demon Mahishasura wins a boon that no man can kill him.
Temple legend · 4 tellings · contested
Nila Madhava and the unfinished images of Puri
King Indradyumna's priest finds Nila Madhava worshipped by a Sabara chief; the image vanishes; new images are carved from a sea-borne log and left unfinished when the carver is disturbed.
Origin · 1 telling
Singbonga and the clay-divers
The Munda sun god sends a tortoise, a crab and an earthworm to fetch clay from under the waters; the smallest succeeds and the earth is made.
Origin · 1 telling
Thakur Jiu and the two birds
The Santal creator makes two water-birds over the primal sea; from their eggs come the first man and woman, and no Puranic god appears.